Biodiesel tackles winter cold

Biotechnology is supposed to be cleaner and more efficient – but what if it’s not better?  

Consider biodiesel.   As with ‘regular’ diesel, biodiesel doesn’t like the cold.  It crystallizes into waxy balls, clogging the filter. When it gets really cold, it can gel to the point that it won’t flow or pour.

Regular diesel does this too, but it’s far more resilient than biodiesel.  For anyone who lives where it can and does get really cold, this challenge makes biodiesel a LOT less practical. But with Ottawa pressing to implement new standards for renewable fuels in the near future, including two per cent renewable content in diesel by 2012, the pressure is on to beat the winter chill.

Leading the way, Climate Change Central launched the Alberta Renewable Diesel Demonstration. Started in 2006, ARDD is a multi-stakeholder project involving the combined efforts of both the federal and provincial governments, petroleum refiners, fuel blenders and distributors, primary diesel users and commercial carriers. It’s purpose: testing vehicles and diesel as temperatures as low a minus-44 degrees

ARDD is testing new techniques and biodiesel additives. One such technique involves first heating the oil, then cooling it to near freezing, allowing the saturated fats to crystallise and sink to the bottom. The clear oil on the top is used to make winter biodiesel.

That improved winter biodiesel is combined with additives to make it work when it’s really, REALLY cold, like Winnipeg cold.  Two kinds of renewable diesel are blended into ultra-low sulphur diesel: fatty acid methyl ester and hydro-treated renewable diesel. 

So far the results look promising with test fleets showing no signs of the ill-effects of biodiesel.